Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

Hyperion offers both CDs, and downloads in a number of formats. The site is also available in several languages.

Please use the dropdown buttons to set your preferred options, or use the checkbox to accept the defaults.

Don't show me this message again

Missa Nunca fue pena mayor

Introduction

It is not known if any of Peñalosa's Masses were written for any specific occasion. However, there is no Benedictus copied in the only source for the Missa Nunca fue pena mayor: with only one Agnus Dei (compared to the standard two of the other Masses and the three of the Missa El Ojo), which nevertheless seems textually complete, and a particularly brief Hosanna, it may be that this is intentionally a ‘short’ Mass.

The four-voice Missa Nunca fue pena mayor uses material from the three-voice villancico of the same name by the Flemish composer Urrede (Johannes Wreede, of Bruges), who was appointed as singer and maestro to the Aragonese Chapel on the 27 June 1477. He had previously been in the service of the first Duke of Alba, García Alvárez de Toledo, the author of the words for Nunca fue pena mayor. This piece has pride of place in the Cancionero Musical de Palacio, appearing at the head of that great manuscript collection of late fifteenth-century Spanish secular music. It became widely known throughout Europe, in marked contrast to other Spanish repertoire of the time. It was even printed (with an additional fourth part) in Petrucci’s Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A, published in Venice in 1501. This was the earliest printed collection of part music (in fact apparently compiled by a Castilian, Petrus Castellanus!).

Indeed, Peñalosa was not the only composer to use this song, as Pierre de La Rue’s Mass of the same name appeared in Petrucci’s Misse Petri de la Rue in 1503. As he had been, since 1492, in the service of Philip the Fair, and married in 1497, to Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, Pierre de La Rue would have had a notable Spanish connection even before his first trip to Spain in 1501/3. The sources for this Mass (and its publication in 1503) probably indicate that it was written prior to 1501. Might it have been specially composed in commemoration of these royal events? For Peñalosa’s Mass we have even less grounds for conjecture, but in style it is perhaps the most ‘Flemish’ of his Masses and as such it could well have been a Spanish composer’s response to foreign competition!

Another Flemish contemporary, Matthaeus Pipelare, quoted the tenor of Nunca fue pena mayor in his Memorare Mater Christi, a Hymnus de septem doloribus dulcissimae Mariae Virginis. The latter piece sings of the seven sorrows of the Virgin, with the third voice of the seven being the tenor of Nunca fue pena mayor (the text of which sings of the pain of love, beginning with ‘Never was there greater pain’), and its use has an obvious symbolic intent. So with Peñalosa, the use of the villancico as a model may also be a tribute to the Virgin, though less obviously so than with the Ave Maria and Salve regina chants in the Missa Ave Maria peregrina.

The melody of the Urrede villancico is quoted exactly by Peñalosa in various places in the Mass, for example, in Kyrie I, where the first half of the tune is sung in the uppermost voice. Elsewhere, sometimes it appears in augmented note values (but otherwise unaltered), notated as a mensuration canon, as in Gloria, apparently combined with sections of the plainchant Gloria XV, which begins at ‘et in terra’ with the same rising melodic configuration. The complete melody of Part 2 of the villancico is quoted in the bass, beginning at the triple-time ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’. In Sanctus, only the first part of the tune is quoted, in the topmost voice, but according to the canonic indication: Prima ut iacet; secunda in dupplo (‘the first time as it stands; the second with double values’). Meanwhile the other voices interweave their own increasingly fragmentary sequential ostinato counterpoints, combining in one of Peñalosa’s most strange and striking textures.

Not only does Peñalosa quote the melody (the top voice) of Urrede’s composition, but he uses from time to time the tenor (middle voice of the original three-part version of the villancico): Part 1 is sung by the tenor in the second Kyrie, and in the Agnus Dei, most notably, the same section is sung in long note values by the alto. No quotation of the full polyphonic texture of the villancico appears in the Mass.

Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace to men of good will.
We praise thee. We bless thee.
We adore thee. We glorify thee.
We give thee thanks for thy great glory.
O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father almighty.
O Lord, the only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father.
Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
Who takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer.
Who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us.
For thou only art Holy. Thou only art Lord.
Thou only art most high, Jesus Christ.
With the Holy Ghost, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

I believe in one God,
the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God.
Born of the Father before all ages.
God of God, light of light, true God of true God.
Begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father:
by whom all things were made.
Who for us men,
and for our salvation, came down from heaven.
And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost
of the Virgin Mary: and was made man.
He was crucified also for us:
under Pontius Pilate He suffered death and was buried.
And the third day he rose again according to the scriptures.
And ascended into heaven: sitteth at the right hand of the Father.
And he shall come again with glory to judge the living
and the dead: of whose kingdom there shall be no end.
And in the Holy Ghost, Lord and giver of life:
who proceedeth from the Father and the Son.
Who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified;
who spoke through the Prophets.
And in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.
And I await the resurrection of the dead.
And the life of the world to come. Amen.